Tag Archives: cheer

Beginning a School Wide Chant

Background: The informant  is a 22 year old male currently living in San Luis Obispo, California. He attended CalPoly-SLO and is currently working as a manager for a boy and girls volleyball club. He played volleyball and basketball throughout high school, and played and coached volleyball while in college. His story is from his time in college.

Context: The context was the informant was, after a sporting event, the informant was reminded of his time in college when he and his friends started a cheer. He performed the cheer.

Text:

WC: In college, since I was on the club volleyball team and was a coach for the girl’s team, I would always attend the volleyball matches whenever they were at home. So, my friends and I thought it would be funny to start a cheer, or a chant, at the games, as we knew all the players. 

Me: What was the cheer?

WC: Every time, someone got a block, we would say “booboo” and then clap twice. [does it]

Me: Was there significance behind it?

WC: Uh, not really, it was more to show the girls that we were there and we were supporting them. I mean, cheers in sports are really just to build morale and boost the team’s spirit so that was all that we were trying to do.

Me: What happened to the chant?

WC: Actually, since we did it at every D1 game, the other people around us started to pick it up. And then, the girls on the team started to do it after every block. So, what started as just our little firendgroup chant became a CalPoly-wide thing.

Analysis:

Informant: He was clearly very happy with the chant becoming a sports-wide occurrence at his school, especially that the girl’s themselves started using it. His intention was simply to have a morale boosting chant, but it did much more than that.

Mine: Cheers have long been used in sports in order to reveal a certain community of people. Typically, cheers are created in groups and spread through word of mouth, at least initially. People spend time in order to create someone that will stand out and boost morale. While initially it was simply something between friends, it became a much bigger thing, spreading to other fans and the players themselves. It demonstrates that folklore starts from the people, no matter who they are, and that anyone can contribute to the culture of the group they are in. The main form of communication in sports is cheering from the sidelines, and anyone should be able to contribute to that. There doesn’t need to always be people leading the cheers; instead, the cheers can start on their own.

Ole Miss “Hotty Toddy” Cheer

Nationality: american
Age: 24
Occupation: Sale representative
Residence: San Fransisco
Performance Date: April 19, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: none

Main Piece: 

Informant- *Loud Shouting Voice* 

Hell yeah, damn right!!!

hotty toddy gosh almighty

who in the hell are we HEY!!!

flim flam, bim bam

OLE MISS BY DAMN!

Interviewer- Is there a specific time you sing the song? 

Informant- The song is a response to the usually shouted phrase “Are You Ready?”. It is sung every football game before kick off. As a student, we sing the song in The Grove, the Ole Miss tailgating area, and all over Oxford. I would sing the song with students in bars and on the streets of Oxford. 

Interviewer- Do you feel connected to the song or people who sing it?

Informant- Yes! This song shows my pride for my school, Ole Miss. I feel connected to our city and school and everyone who sings it. We all clearly love our school and football team. Each time we sing louder. The song usually gets pretty rowdy and the crowds go wild. HOTTY TODDY !!! 

Background: The informant learned the Ole Miss cheer song as an incoming freshman to the University of Mississippi. She learned it from peers and word of mouth. She learned that the song is sung with a loud confident gusto and usually with a group of people. A sorority member and fan of football, the informant feels great pride for her school, especially when singing the song. The song represents the community camaraderie for the school and football team.

Context: This piece was collected by the informant on April 19, 2020. She is currently an Alumni from Ole Miss and graduated in 2018. She sang the song alone in an outdoor setting. She explained that the song is usually sung in large groups at a sports gathering. 

Thoughts: The song has been sung by Ole Miss fans for generations, dating back to the mid 1900s. There is no official copyright or creation of the chat and melody. It is a fight song representing folk music of Ole Miss community members. 

Team Cheer

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 28 March 2018
Primary Language: English

Subject: A traditional cheer preceding my high school tennis team matches.

 

Collection: On the Dana Hills High School’s tennis team, we had a tradition before every tennis match to say the same cheer to boost our team’s confidence and to also psyche out our opposing team. In the traditional cheer, we first began by creating a small tipi on the court with all of our rackets so they’re standing balanced and bringing us all together. Our team captains lead us through the letters of our school’s mascot: dolphins. They shout “D-D-DOL” followed by the rest of the team’s recitation. Then, the team captains shout “P-P-PHIN”. We move through the spelling of DOLPHINS two more times and end with a loud “Go Dolphins!” and each reach for our own rackets and bring them once more together, held high in the air.

 

Background Info: C. Stuart is a freshman at the University of Southern California and is majoring in Screenwriting. She has played tennis all her life and was a part of Dana Hills High School tennis team all four years of school.

 

Context: A written transcript shared via email after assigned to share a piece of folk practice, belief, or informally passed down tradition with a classmate.

 

Analysis: Cheers, especially those performed by those participating in the sporting event, act as expressions of identity and allow for a sense of unity within a team. In this case, the assertion of one’s own identity depends on the existence of the “other” or the other team that clearly does not know the ritual or cheer. The fact that people in physical proximity are alienated then allow for an increased sense of belonging and essential exclusivity. This sense of belonging when combined with the creation of the “other” would be comforting in the face of an unsure outcome, such as an impending sporting match. Asserting one’s team identity also helps alleviate the pressure off one individual; if one person makes a mistake, the team makes the fall with them with the potential, depending on the sport, of another person picking up the slack or recovering the mistake. Therefore, a cheer is both a way of asserting a sense of belonging and soothing anxieties when facing an unsure result.

Softball Cheers

Nationality: Armenian, Spanish, American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/24/18
Primary Language: English

I interviewed my informant, Vanessa, in the band office lounge. As I prompted her to share any folklore/folk traditions/folk beliefs she knew, she was reminded of the softball cheers she used when she was on her little league team (8-13 year olds). I collected an example from her:

 

“Down by the river (Down by the river),

Took a little walk (Took a little walk),

Met up with the other team (Met up with the other team),

Had a little talk (Had a little talk),

Pushed them in the river! (Pushed them in the river!),

Hung them up to dry (Hung them up to dry),

We will beat you! (We will beat you!),

Any old time! (Any old time!)

Any, any, any, any, any old time! (Any, any, any, any, any old time!)

 

My informant learned this cheer from the older girls on her team: “It’s been passed down for — I don’t know how many years!”

 

She told me this would normally be ‘performed’ by the team members the dugout. They would chant this when one of their team’s players were at bat. This is to distract the fielders of the opposite team. It’s a call and response, so one person says it, and everyone else echos the same thing (The part in parenthesis representing the response of the team members not leading the call).

 

Analysis

I never did softball, but I have heard about softball cheers from many of my other girl friends. From my knowledge, they range from complex (which choreographed movements or dance) to simple call and response (like the example documented here). I believe learning the chants from the older girls brings the section together, and allows a “Big-Little” relationship between the players. It also unifies the team against the other in healthy, competitive spirit.

 

“Faith over fear.”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English

Informant: At my gym, we always say, “Faith over fear.” And that was like something we used to say all the time, and that was the one point that I was even semi religious in my life.

 

My informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is from San Diego, California. We had this conversation in the study room of my sorority house.

 

This is interesting because it somewhat can be related to a ritual before going out to perform. My informant was a cheerleader for a while, so this would work as a ritual and a superstition for some kind of performance she would ever do. It seems that many people have religious rituals they do before a performance, such as one of my informants doing the Catholic cross before going on in every ballet number she did. These manifest even in people who aren’t religious, and my informant is not religious anymore. This is interesting and shows some type of dependency on the idea of some hope for help from some other place, even without the belief that a God or higher power exists. It seems to be a type of mechanism that people just develop.